Biography as Puzzle: The Difficult Life of Yuri Borisovich Rumer (1901–1985)

Yuri Borisovich Rumer (1901–1985) lived in turbulent times. Born at the turn of the century, he took part in revolutionary activities, contributed to the birth of quantum physics, worked in prison during Stalin’s times, and later helped to develop science in Siberia, trained students, and published textbooks on theoretical physics. As a young student, Rumer spent three years in Göttingen working with Max Born and Albert Einstein. Together with his friend Lev Landau, he shared the experiences of research and arrest. After his release from prison, Rumer settled in Siberia’s new academic center near Novosibirsk. Today, his students work in many academic institutions all over the world. Writing Rumer’s biography has proved a difficult task, especially for someone who is not a physicist but a historian by training. Some contradictory elements of Rumer’s life story as told by his own memoirs and by relatives had to be checked against archival documents and additional witnesses. Many pieces of the puzzle have been resolved, but some unanswered questions remain.